Okondja is a town in Haut-Ogooué province, eastern

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the nort ...

. It is the capital of the Sebe-Brikolo Department. According to the 1993 census it had a population of 5,193 and in 2013 it had an estimated population of 10,136 . It lies along National Route 15 and is served by Okondja Airport. There are significant

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

reserves in the area. There is an old cinema at Okandja named Sébé Cinema.

Geography and geology

By road, Okondja is located northeast of

Franceville Franceville is one of the four largest cities in Gabon, with a population of 110,568 at the 2013 census. It lies on the Mpassa River and at the end of the Trans-Gabon Railway and the N3 road. It grew from a village named Masuku when Pierre Savor ...

. It lies on the Sébé River and is located in the Sébé Valley. It lies along National Route 15 and is served by Okondja Airport. Geologically it belongs to the Okondja Basin, a forested area with submarine "spilitic volcanism", which explains its significant

reserves. A Chinese-Brazilian consortium is keen on exploiting local reserves of manganese, and there is a known manganese ore mine about to the east and numerous others in the area. By 2004, the Brazilians had shown an interest in exploiting at least two deposits in the Okondja area. A 2006 assessment of the area concluded that if exploited to its full potential, Gabon could become the leading exporter of manganese in the world, if the deposits at Franceville, Mbigou and Ndjolé are also exploited. Okondja is also said to have a high diversity of unusual

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...

s and bananas and coffee are produced in the area.

Demographics

The prefectures of Okondja and Franceville are home to the Obamba people, also known as the Mbamba, who speak a Mbede language. The Lendambomo language is said to be spoken in Okondja.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Haut-Ogooué Province